Just Hoppin' By...

...with a fun and easy birthday card that uses our adorable Eyelet Outlet Frog Set Brads! 

Each set includes frogs, cattails, and lily pads with both purple and yellow flowers. So you can make a whole little miniature scene! 

I've built my tiny frog habitat inside the fun music-themed chipboard letters from my Etsy Shop, Just Enough Stuff; then placed it in a "pond" made with Blue and White Dots Washi water set above a Skinny Green Washi shoreline.

Don't FROG-et to check out all the other cuuuuute critter brads in the Eyelet Outlet Store and check out the designer inspiration every day on the EO Blog! ♥

spice up your life

just in case you're wondering about the title of this week's shopping our stash challenge, let me just tell you right off that it isn't food- or even color-related. nope. we'd like to see... (wait for it, because i'm preeeeeeeettttttty sure you won't guess this one, lol!) ...a card inspired by one of the spice girls!!! ok, yeah, i confess that the first time i read that, i did a double take and a miniony, "whaaaaaaaaa??!?!" but then i did a quick mental review of the spice girls: scary, sporty, baby, ginger and posh and realized there are A LOT of ways to go with this! plus, secretly, we on design teams like hosting the occasional challenge that is a bit hard to guess; that way we can see who only reads the titles on an aggregator site and links to 47 challenges without actually bothering to read the any of challenge blogs' pages. bwahahahahahaha! (ok, it might only be me who enjoys that, and i'm a bit sheepish to admit it, but there ya go.)

meanwhile, i decided to go with "posh" as my inspirational spice girl, and here's my card:

only just realizing that there isn't much in the way of papercrafting products here, unless we count the dreamweaver crackle embossing paste and liquitex gesso? other than that there is still stash, but it's vintage or upcycled: a page from a vintage horitcultural dictionary, with the aforesaid embossing paste thru stencils from tcw, wendi vecchi and penny black; a swatch of bamboo and one of sheer fabric; a pearl applique from M&J trimmings; vintage seambinding, leaf illustration and rose photo; thin chipboard substrate: paper accents; adhesives: xyron, sookwang tape, gluedots and lots and lots of machine stitching!

ok, yes, even for me, this has A LOT OF STUFF and it's all top-drawer! a friend of mine who designs custom window treatments recently shared a bunch of older/surplus swatches with me, so i now have an utterly luscious little hoard of luxury fabrics AND some neat wood and bamboo samples, like the one i've used here. since it's a bit heavier than the typical card fodder, i fused my vintage paper background to some lightweight chipboard, and used the sewing machine to attach the fussy-cut chiffon fabric and the pearl applique to the bamboo panel, and then again to secure the bamboo panel to the background. it was definitely a bit slow-going (i had to manually advance the machine to span all of those wider wooden slats) but i feel like everything is on there quite securely and there's definitely enough texture and interest... even for ME, lol!

plus i think you'll agree: it's pretty darned POSH, right?!

be sure to check out the rest of the spicy goodness from my design team darlings over at shopping our stash! ♥

♥PEACE♥ on earth

it's time for a brand new theme at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and this time we're going with "peace on earth". you have a few different choices for this one: you can incorporate the word "peace" in your card, use a peace sign, or even just evoke a scene or image that feels peaceful to you. so put on your thinking cap and see what you can come up with! i was headed in a completely different direction when i re-discovered my stash of colorful eyelet outlet peace sign brads!

patterned paper: doodlebug, echo park, elle's studio; peace sign brads, heart brad, red enamel dots, skinny stripe washi tape: eyelet outlet; sentiment sticker: doodebug; bakery twine: from an actual bakery, i swear!!!!!!!!!!! :) :) :) adhesives: elmers brad glue tape, 3m foam tape, ordinary scotch tape (to secure the twine at the back of the panel), sewing machine

i was inspired by this awesome "road map" from tuesday morning sketches:

stephanie also has a brilliant card to show you. why not hop over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and check it out, darlings?

Are You Ready For Your Close-Up?

I never stop being amazed by the things that can inspire me. Eyelet Outlet Brads and Washi Tape are an endless source, obviously, but this week I found some cool new ways to use them, thanks to a $2 camera stamp from the bargain bin at a big box crafting store. The three cards I made are all on the Eyelet Outlet Blog today!

My first idea was to pair the camera with the Selfie Brad set. I love that the packets contain six smart phones and six "Selfie" badges, and that the phones come in a few different colors. Although obviously, my favorites are the pink ones, lol! That being the case, I paper pieced the camera stamp in some neutral grey papers with an accent of Skinny Stars Washi. I used a Pink Heart Enamel for the lens and a Pink Enamel Dot for the button, with a small clear gem as the flash.  

My next idea happened because when I made the "Beach" card a couple of weeks ago, I had a pineapple-- with adorable Sunglass Brad--  and a palm tree all ready to go, but wound up not needing them. Somehow they became the stars of their very own faux polaroid, with a sky made from Blue Dots Washi and torn Glitter Gold Tape as the sandy beach. Of course I needed a Sunshine Brad and I paper pieced another camera, this time using Skinny Green Stripe Washi with Yellow Enamel Heart and Dot accents. 

Faux polaroids are quite a favorite of mine, so my third card uses another one. The sentiment "Oh Snap" works really well for anything from a belated birthday to a get well card, so I kept the rest of the embellishments pretty simple so that it could be used for many different occasions. I used the leftover pieces from the first grey camera, but this time I used Red Enamels and Skinny Clouds Tape to accent the body. I "matted" the strip of camera-patterned paper with Glitter Silver tape, just to make it stand out a tiny bit more. I actually had the whole card put together when I spotted another pair of Sunglass Brads sitting on my work table, and I just couldn't resist adding them as well. 

The next time you have trouble choosing between more than one card idea, why not get out your Eyelet Outlet embellishments and make them all?! ♥

christmas in... august?

that's right! just when christmas in july is safely over, this week's challenge at shopping our stash is called, "countdown to christmas" and we want you to make just one more hot weather holiday card. i was secretly kind of excited about this, because i still had a new pretty pink posh stamp set from my coffee loving cardmakers' summer blog hop prize* that i hadn't test driven yet. so this was the perfect chance.

"holiday pals" stamp set: pretty pink posh, colored with tombow dualbrush pens and prismacolour pencils; brad accessories (glasses, elf hat, antlers): eyelet outlet; patterned paper: doodlebug, elle's studio, dcwv, american crafts + loads of ancient tiny green scraps for the paper-pieced trees; fence die: lawn fawn; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, gluedots, sewing machine

by now i think everyone knows that coloring tiny creatures so they have a bit of shading and so forth is pretty much my achilles heel. so i'm not even going to mention how long it took me to make these three cuties "card ready"... luckily they are so adorable that it was worth it! one of the reasons i chose this set (it's called "holiday pals") is because i had the feeling some of the cute eyelet outlet brads, like the elf hats, glasses and antlers, would work perfectly with the critters and i stand by that decision. midway through cutting out ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL those trees i was regretting my decision not to spring for the coordinating die set, and i would not rule out a return trip to the P3 online store, lol!

i'm playing along at sketch saturday, and since it's a "fifth saturday" we could choose any sketch from the archive. i went with #273 because it's awesome, and also, i thank it for remining me i had that cool fence die, which would work really well with the P3 stamps!

and now you really need to check out my SOS dt darlings' work over at shopping our stash! ♥

*i was lucky enough to win a $25 gc to pretty pink posh, with which i was able to choose THREE stamp sets and only went over my total by $2 woohoo! ♥

holy mackeral... and other cards from the last week of ICAD

it's hard to believe it's the last day of the 2017 version of the index card a day project. those 61 days just flew by at an incredible pace! luckily i have my big bulging book of cards to remind me of how much fun i had. ♥

day 51: swim

hey look! it's a collage of colorburst, vintage paper and funky fish!

(because YEAH the collage obsession is still strong in these parts lol!)

day 52: adjective

ok, you might need more than one... :) :) :) 

basically an excuse to play with elisabeth's ken oliver cut-n-color mandala flower stamps and dies, in a colorburst + zing embossing powder context. 

day 53: off prompt

it wouldn't be ICAD if there wasn't an ogee pattern in there somewhere, lol. this one is punched and stacked colorburst circles with loads of messy stitching.

day 54: "greetings from"

in this case, greetings from crazy collage land?! because the lure to use colorburst, rubber stamps, modeling paste, vintage paper and a russian made Gaz sedan from the

n awesome book of car illustrations i scored at a garage sale all together, on the same tiny card, was JUST. TOO. STRONG.

day 55: sepia

sepia colorburst, to be exact; painted into a sort of mehndi/henna design.

day 56: off prompt

a bit of a rainbow collage shout-out to the lovely tammy g and all of the ICAD gang on instagram.

day 57: spring

slightly tangential take on the prompt. more of an excuse to use my new favorite donna downey stencil... with colorburst, gelatos, rubber stamps, modelling paste, vintage paper, the typewriter, the sewing machine and... no, ok, i think that's it, lol.

day 58: summer

because there's nothing more summery than a pair of rainbow painted colorburst index cards with loads of stabilo pen doodles on top. right?!

day 59: autumn

a while ago, my mom gave me a bunch of older nature conservancy seals that have gorgeous illustrations on them. quite recently, she gave me a whole lot of vintage slide mounts. i'm pretty sure everyone else will be tired of the combination before i am, for which i apologize in advance...

day 60: winter

it turns out that little snips of paint chip make almost as good a frame as vintage slide mounts. who knew?

(technically this is not especially wintery, but it is ALL WHITE, so there's that!)

day 61: sunset
done in two layers: a colorburst watercolor sunset on the lower tabbed card; a mandala-style outline on the upper acrylic card. deliberately very similar to "day 1: sunrise" since we've come full circle.

and finally here's the whole bulgy, messy, sprawly book of 61 (plus a few extras!) cards:

a reminder that all the info and inspiration for ICAD and beyond is available at daisy yellow art all throughout the year! check it out, darlings! i'm going to make an album for these somewhere... maybe FB... meanwhile you can see the whole collection (you know, if you have insomnia or something, lol?) on instagram or in this blog thread. thanks for hanging out with me during 61 days! ♥♥♥

Xmas in July: The Big WRAP-UP

If you've been following the fun Christmas in July Event on the Eyelet Outlet Blog every Saturday afternoon this month, you'll know that the design team has gone all out with the holiday inspiration! Since this is the fifth and last Saturday of the month, Susan thought it would be appropriate to WRAP UP with... well, some giftwrap ideas. And you know, you never have to ask me twice when it comes to fancy giftwrapping, lol!

I love gift bags. I suspect most folks do, because they're sooooooo convenient! I think we crafty types love them because they are so incredibly easy to customize--especially if you happen to have lots of lovely Eyelet Outlet Washi Tape, which I do. Thus, I buy the plain bags in bulk, in a couple of sizes, so that I always have them on hand. Sometimes I decorate a little panel to go on top of the bag, but this time, I've applied the tapes right to the bag itself. I've used  Merry Christmas Washi, Wide Tree Tape, Music Note Tape, Merry Christmas Skinny Tape, Heart Washi (not all the tapes have to be official "holiday" ones; music notes and hearts add to the vibe of any celebration, don't they?) and strips of Skinny Washi Tape in pink and green.

Once I had a nice base, I thought I'd add a tag; or in this case, a cluster of tags. Ok, yes, technically, you really only NEED one, but any time you group a few "like" things together it makes a design more dynamic, so I chose three different sizes of tag to combine, and I made one of them from a piece of holiday themed transparency, so that you could see through it. I decorated the tags with a sweet stamped Happy Snowman from Pretty Pink Posh, to whom I've given a smart Bowler Hat, Pearl Bling Eyes, Tiny Brad Buttons. Then I added... you guessed it... more tape: Heart Washi, Holly Tape, Merry Christmas Washi, Skinny Heart Tape and a few more shades of solid color Skinny Washi Tape, some of which I overlapped, to get even more variety of widths! 

I couldn't resist adding a small Paper Flower with a Candy Cane Brad before I attached the whole cluster to the bag's handle with a bit of twine and called it done.

I hope you've enjoyed Christmas in July as much as I have! If you've missed any of the awesome Saturday posts they are all collected under the "Christmas in July" label on the Eyelet Outlet Blog; just click the link to see amazing inspiration from all of the designers! And of course you know that my fellow EO designer Stephanie and I will keep on celebrating Christmas in August, September, October and November at ♥Jingle Belles♥ so feel free to join us in getting a jump on the holidays!